


Brushing off the dirt

by blcwriter



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:12:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4228380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the <i>Narada</i>, they get together, but then Leonard isn't so sure. What to do with the mess that's between them?  Inspired by <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/285925.html?view=8983269#t8983269"> these photos</a> posted by <a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://weepingnaiad.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://weepingnaiad.livejournal.com/">weepingnaiad</a>  at <a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/">jim_and_bones</a>  for the Daily Captain and Doctor (members only).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brushing off the dirt

Author: blcwriter  
Title: Brushing off the dirt  
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy  
Rating: R  
Words: 2979  
Summary: After the _Narada_ , they get together, but then Leonard isn't so sure. What to do with the mess that's between them? Inspired by [ these photos](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/285925.html?view=8983269#t8983269) posted by [](http://weepingnaiad.livejournal.com/profile)[**weepingnaiad**](http://weepingnaiad.livejournal.com/) at [](http://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/profile)[**jim_and_bones**](http://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/) for the Daily Captain and Doctor (members only).

It had been his idea. Not the best one—maybe even his worst, though “mercy” killing Daddy and then neglecting Joss until she divorced him weren’t far behind. But they’d fucked after the _Narada_ and it had been so holy-jesus intense and then there was going to be four months before they took off again—into _space_ and just _jesus_ , Jim was his best friend, jumping into a relationship maybe wasn’t the best idea in the world, comfort hey-we’re-alive-and-hey-I-forgive-you-for-letting-Spock-strand-me-on-that-iceberg all weekend mindblowing marathon best-sex-of-his life notwithstanding. Even though he’d been the one to kiss Jim in the first place, so really, it was all his damned fault to begin with.

So yeah—it’d been a bad idea saying "maybe we should slow this shit down, Jim,” and just like that, Jim went stone-still, eyes wary and mouth set in a line—and then he’d slipped out of bed, all white lines and lean except where the damned bruises wouldn’t fade for another few weeks because he was peachy like that. With a light tone and a false grin—because the kid was shit at lying sometimes—and he’d said “good idea, we’re gonna be stressed out and busy trying to get the ship fixed and off the ground and all of that shit, we wouldn’t want to complicate things,” and before Leonard knew it Jim was back in his sweats and out the damned door.

Godfuckingdamnit.

He might be shit about lying, but he was _fantastic_ at making a real quick escape.

Which he did every time Leonard tried to pin him down for a conversation about _them_ that wasn’t just ship-related, though damn if he knew what he was going to say, and every time he ran down Jim in the mess there was always someone else from the crew, and that went on for _four fucking weeks_ while his PADD pinged with requests from his Captain for staffing and inventory and all of that shit. In the meantime he had patients to see, not to mention Pike to follow up with, and Jim’s feelings about Leonard’s request to slow down were pretty damned clear—he didn’t want to, and Leonard’d fucked up, but damnit, it was all happening so fast, and he needed to just think about one thing at a time, though damned if he knew where to start. His bourbon looked awfully tempting of nights, but he’d already done that, and he wasn’t going to go there again. Not in the completely soused way, at least. So he kept himself to one tumbler a night and let his brain run in circles about how he’d fucked up again, but damnit, he just wasn’t ready…

And then he got a response to his message, the one he’d sent when he was just… fed up and done with the last of his goddamned CMO paperwork, the one that read “Fine, look, I was wrong, I’m sorry, can we please talk like friends now?” Though god knew what he’d say when Jim called him back.

Jim’s response—an out-of-office auto-responder-- said “You have reached the inbox of Captain James T. Kirk. I am on leave for four weeks. In my absence, please direct questions to my Yeoman, Janice Rand or Admiral Christopher Pike.”

His quarters were totally empty when Leonard went by. Of fucking course. Not that the kid owned that much to begin with. And where the hell would he go for a month?  


\---

  
Pike was cagey as hell—and made no bones about the fact that he was fully aware (without even saying so, stupid command-type hinting sonofabitch) that he’d screwed up with Jim and it was all Leonard’s fault.

“Just tell me where he went so I can go grovel or whatever shit I need to do, damnit.”

“There’s the bedside manner that’s going to make you Medical Admiral someday,” Pike snorted. He didn’t even bother looking over from whatever so engrossed him on his vidscreen. Probably more dirty pictures from his girlfriend, that Captain One with the weird Illyrian name. He’d picked up Pike’s PADD one day when the man was still in the hospital and gotten an inadvertent sneak peek. Hot—but still—the things he didn’t need to know about upper command.

“Oh, I love you too, now stop looking at dirty pictures of your girlfriend and just fucking tell me already.”

Pike snorted, looked over, and looked hard at Leonard’s face before deciding something—the feeling of being _assessed_ made Leonard itch, especially since most of the time Pike treated him if not as an equal, then as more than a cadet. But he knew, though Jim didn’t talk about it, that the two of them were close in their weird, combative, command kind of way—and that Pike had looked out for Jim in various ways throughout their Academy years.

“He told you about Tarsus?” Pike asked.

Leonard nodded, suppressing any surprise that Pike knew. Maybe Jim told him, maybe it was in Jim’s locked security file—whatever. Pike _was_ an admiral now. He probably knew about Leonard’s dad, too.

Pike nodded back. “He’s still good friends with the Aprils.” The name rang a bell, but not more than that.

“Aprils, right.”

“I’ll tell One you said hi,” Pike murmured, as Leonard turned and stalked out of the office. Leonard threw him the bird over his shoulder—at least it earned him a laugh.  


\---

  
Turned out the Aprils were the Captain and CMO—married, no less, who’d responded to the Tarsus disaster. And that they lived in Wyoming. On a horse farm.

Which would explain those beat-up black cowboy boots of Jim’s Leonard’d always made fun of that Jim never tossed but never explained. Or where he went during breaks when Leonard went home to his Gram, since Winona never came back to Earth if she could help it, and Sam was off in Beta Quadrant doing biology research.

He’d never known Jim could ride. Or that he knew shit about horses. He’d always stayed silent when Leonard waxed poetic about Gram’s quarterhorses and shit—but then, the Aprils ran mustangs for the conservation bureau.

Well.

He’d never been to Wyoming, or pissed off a boyfriend before they could even really fairly call themselves that. But that was what Starfleet was about—exploring new frontiers and all of that shit.

  
\---  
 

Frustrated as shit, he got out of the ‘Fleet pool hovercar, kicked a large stone, and glowered at the patchy grass studding the miles of flat sand and dirt that bordered the road. That and the wire fencing. He must have gone wrong at some turn, but he couldn’t see how—he’d written down the directions that Amos Thundercloud guy’d given him last night at the motel—the ones he’d said would get Leonard to the Aprils’ precisely, and yet there was no sign of the ranch, nothing at all.

_Fuck._

It was late afternoon, the sun was hot as all fuck, his battery was running toward low even though he _swore_ he’d charged it last night, and if he didn’t find the Aprils’ place before dark, the solar panels wouldn’t any use until morning—he’d have to either sleep in the car or turn back into town and get directions from somebody else, since Jim wasn’t answering his comms—or call his own Yeoman and ask for a beamout. Which would be lovely—he could see the vid-comm headlines now. “World-saving CMO gets lost on straight road in Wyoming, leaves ‘Fleet property by side of the road to get ravaged by vandals.” He patted his pockets for the small pack of hand-rolled cigarettes—highly contraband, sure, but the feds looked the other way about that kind of shit on Native American lands, and the motel had been on an old reservation, even though most notions of sovereignty had pretty much gone by the wayside—and tipped his head down out of the wind just long enough to light one. Sweat crept down his spine under his shirt, and as he inhaled the smoke—cool, delicious, that Thundercloud guy might be shit at directions but at least his cigarettes were damned good—he loosened his tie under the heat of the sun, glad he’d left the jacket in the backseat of the ‘car.

This whole errand was ridiculous, really. Haring off to Wyoming—and worse yet, dressing up like some Sunday caller, for fuck’s sake—what the hell did he think he was doing? He should have just sent Jim a long, well-thought out letter, gotten shit straight in his own head—not borrowed a car on a whim and then spent days driving as he stared at the road and thought over and over the shit that went down and how he’d fucked up until he felt lower than dirt but still had no real idea what to say when he got there.

If he got there. Maybe he’d just turn into one of the tumbleweeds here on the side of the road.

He inhaled his cigarette once again, let the nicotine flood his blood, clear his head more than a bit. It’d always been his drug of choice—better than coffee, despite it being banned. Not that that stopped Leonard every now and again. He exhaled, tipped the ash onto the synthcrete, contemplated the bits of paper floating away, then closed his eyes as he inhaled again. When he exhaled, he turned back to the car, almost decided to head back into town, and finished his cigarette with one last, long draw. When he looked up from grinding the butt into the road, there was a figure crouched on the other side of the road, checking out the hooves of a horse and less than 100 yards from the fence—and it had to be Jim, it didn’t make sense for it to be anyone else.

Slowly, since he wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t some heat mirage—maybe he’d just finally lost it—Leonard crossed the road and ducked through the wires of the fence, taking his time, since at this point it’d be damned stupid to get heat prostration too. He grew up in heat, sure, but it’d been a while since he’d spent any time acclimatized to it.

Jim was delicately picking a sharp stone out of the frog of his dun mare’s hoof when Leonard reached him. The horse flicked one ear at Leonard—rolled an amber eye—then decided he wasn’t worth any bother and turned her attention to Jim, nosing his hair. His jeans and white tee were so tight, they left nothing to the imagination at all—to his mind, more suited to a fashion shoot than a farm-- but it was clear he’d been out working because they were dusty and dirty. He had on those boots Leonard had never yet seen him wear, that and some old clunky ring that looked like a ‘Fleet ring, except older, somehow. And he was tanner than Leonard’d seen him since—well, the last time he’d gone off on one of his mystery breaks and Leonard hadn’t pressed about where he’d gone.

He didn’t look up from his task of picking out the mare’s hooves, but then again, a careful man wouldn’t.

“Amos Thundercloud’s directions suck,” he said softly, so as not to spook the mustang. She didn’t wear any bit, just a halter and reins, saddle and stirrups. And Jim didn’t have any spurs on his boots.

“Not at all-- you were right about where he said you would be,” Jim answered, not looking up until he’d flicked out the last stone from the last hoof. Only then did he sit back on his heels, his hands lightly clasped in front of him like the squatting position in the middle of the goddamned fucking desert was the most natural seat in the world. “Nice tie,” he said, his tone so flat there was no way to tell if he was being sardonic. He looked stern—serious—fucking gorgeous, too—and of course, there was no goddamned way to tell what he was thinking.

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t figure out if I was comin’ courtin’ or goin’ to my own funeral so I figured I’d better get dressed either way,” is what came out of his mouth, and Jim squinted up at him, hand shielding his eyes at the lowering sun, but otherwise didn’t respond. The wind whistled over the grass and the mare blew while Leonard cursed the annoying fact of his accent, which was as much of a tell as just laying his cards out on the table. Like driving clear out here already wasn’t.

Jim suddenly unfolded from his crouch, not a popping knee or hip making a damned sound as he did, the limber sonofabitch, then jerked his chin toward Leonard’s car. “Any particular reason you’re stopped here? Other than Amos fucking around with your battery?”

Leonard shook his head. It figured—small towns—people would know one another, he guessed. And he supposed Pike would have warned Jim—McCoy might have gotten Pike in position to walk in a year, but Jim—Jim got him off of that ship in the first place.

“I figured you wouldn’t answer if I commed you again-- I was trying to figure out if I had enough juice to go back into town before the sun went down, or whether I’d better call my Yeoman and embarrass the hell out of myself asking for a beamout.”

Jim didn’t say anything—it was just the sound of more wind, the mare shifting her feet, and the feel of the sun beating down on Leonard’s back. His shirt was starting to stick, and it wasn’t just the sun. He finally spoke into the silence because he couldn’t stand it any longer. “I’d just about decided to go back into town and try again in the morning. With different directions,” he couldn’t help adding, because maybe this Thundercloud dude was an old friend of Jim’s, and maybe he’d called Jim to warn him so Jim could meet Leonard on his own terms, but Leonard didn’t appreciate being set up, thank you very much.

Something hard shone in Jim’s eyes for a moment—and before Leonard knew it, he was on his ass in the dirt, his jaw feeling like it’d been spun all the way ‘round his head as he saw stars in the daytime.

When he finally shook it off and could see straight—and was done palpating his jaw to make sure that nothing was broken, but no, it was all just soft-tissue damage, nothing even dislocated, he looked up and Jim was extending a hand to haul him up to his feet.

“You gonna hit me again?” he asked.

Jim snorted. “Depends. You gonna freak out on me again or are you going to actually act like a grown up and deal with your feelings this time?”

Ouch. “Um.” He deserved that, of course—he’d done to Jim what everyone else in his life had done—doubt, walk away, abandon-- he was lucky the man had even come out here to see what he wanted. “You can hit me again if you want.”

Jim shook his head. “Nah. You did come all the way out here. I figure once is enough.  And maybe we both needed some time to think.”

This time, Leonard took Jim’s outstretched hand and Jim hauled him up to his feet with no seeming effort at all. Leonard started to brush the dirt from his rump, but Jim just snorted at him.

“There’s no sense in that—it’s a half hour’s ride back to the house, you’re just going to get dirty again. It’ll be time enough for spit and polish in a few months, Bones, but there’s times when you just can’t get all the way clean.”

Leonard met Jim’s eye – grabbed his wrist—had to know, somehow, now. “Are you speaking just practically, now, or metaphorically in an _us_ sense of the words?”

Jim tipped his head for a moment and thought. “I guess both. But it’s ok, Bones. Like I said, you did come all the way out here. And you were going to come back in the morning. That counts.” For the first time, he quirked a half smile—then said “Come meet Epona. If she’s going to give you a ride back, it’s only polite.”

Leonard made introductions with the dun mare, who snuffled and whickered politely into his palm before he hauled himself onto the mustang’s broader, more muscular back. “Are you sure she can carry…”

Jim snorted as he settled smoothly onto the saddle and chucked at the mare, said “Home, girl,” and the mare started off. “She’s stronger than she looks, and like I said it’s only a half hour’s ride.” After a few minutes of silence, during which he observed that the mare was mostly following her own lead with some subtle neck-and-knee guidance from Jim-- _all the shit he still had to learn_ \-- Jim spoke.

“There’s water in the canteen in the right saddlebag if you want it.”

Leonard removed one hand from where he’d been trying to _chastely_ hold on to Jim’s waist—hard to in those jeans—and twisted to get the canteen. After taking a sip, he offered it forward to Jim, who switched the reins from one hand to the other and drank while the mare stayed her course. When he handed the plastic container back to Leonard, his face, sweat-shiny from sun, was dust-grimed and he wore a small smile.

“Thanks.” There was a wealth of meaning in there, so Leonard took it for all it was worth, leaned forward to kiss him just once, not long enough to distract him from the horse, and repeated the thanks.

The kiss tasted like Jim’s smile and sunshine and sweat and lots of dirt. It was more than ok.  



End file.
